"That Little Smudge" by Kelly Shepherd

Oh I see a smudge

Let me just wipe my bright white sleeve across it

It's still there but yet it’s not

To anyone other than me,

all there would be to see is

a blackish tint replacing the smudge

but I see that tint

so I wash and I scrub

trying to remove any lasting color from that smudge

It wasn’t a large smudge,

maybe only the size of pinky nail

yet when I looked at the artwork that I had been given

the artwork that I wanted to change,

I saw the shadows of the smudge surrounding the entire room

I felt myself suffocating from that little smudge

I couldn’t stand it

The shadows were filled with such smoke

It had spread as quick as a disease around the room

Everywhere I turned, all I saw was that little smudge

That little smudge consumed my days

I wished to make it go away

So I tried just that

I tried to wipe it all away

but that didn’t help because all I saw was that tint

All I saw was the parts of the artwork smudged by

my bright white sleeve

soon that little black smudge wasn’t so little

and it wasn’t just one

The smudges grew and grew in number

until I no longer could see a piece of art

I blamed the other precious pieces of art,

the pieces of art that I saw as perfect

When I should have been blaming the smoke

I didn’t use a fire extinguisher

I didn’t try to stop the fire from spreading the deadly fog

I just let it consume me because of

that little smudge that just wasn’t perfect

I guess that’s how it starts though

the cycle for perfection

is a finite as a hamster spinning in a wheel

you think “oh there’s just one thing I don’t like”

but then suddenly you notice every

Single tiny yet soul consuming imperfection

and you can’t take it

Eventually that one wipe

on that bright white sleeve

creates an even bigger mess

It blurs the colors together,

trying to hide the black smudge

yet now the beauty that was there

is now overshadowed by the

deadly smoke

Once a beautiful, original,

masterpiece

now a blur similar to all other pieces of art

I took that white sleeve and tried to erase

but there is no erasing this art

there is only replacing

beauty with smoke

Every wipe we feed the flame

the smoke grows and surrounds us until

it too hard to breathe because each breath remind us

that we are

NOT

perfect

The smoke whispers taunts and

vicious words that are sharp enough to kill,

words that float in and out

always there

keeping this unending cycle in motion

Without those words spoken by the deadly smoke,

the masterpiece might have stayed perfect

for the more we try to erase

and “perfect” our masterpieces,

the less perfect we become.